Us and Them

Manu Joseph is an Indian journalist, novelist and screenwriter. His latest book, Why the Poor Don’t Kill Us, has been on non-fiction bestseller lists in India since its release in August. He wrote the ‘Letter from India’ for the New York Times for several years. He also served as the editor-in-chief of Open Magazine, an Indian newsmagazine. Among several prizes and acclaim, is the Hindu Literary Prize and the American PEN Open Book Award whose jury described him as ‘…that rare bird who can wildly entertain the reader as forcefully as he moves them’. He is also the creator of the Netflix comedy, Decoupled. One of his novels, Serious Men, was adapted as a film by Netflix.

Snigdha Poonam is the author of Scamlands: Inside the Asian Empire of Fraud That Preys on the World. For 15 years, her literary non-fiction has explored how transformative forces act on society. Her first book, Dreamers, showed how the unmet aspirations of the world’s largest cohort of young people reflect the failures of globalization. It won awards and acclaim worldwide and has been optioned for film and television.

Vandana Vasudevan is an urban development scholar, author and columnist whose work spans mobility, gender, transport, the gig economy, technology and society. She holds a PhD in Urban Studies from Université Grenoble Alpes, France where her research focused on the mobility of urban working women. A Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP), she has consulted for the Asian Development Bank (G20 Track), Microsoft Research, the World Bank, WRI, and IFC, Before entering academia and policy, she held leadership roles at HT Media, ICICI Bank and Standard Chartered Bank, after completing her PGDM from IIM Ahmedabad. Before OTP Please!, she has written two other books – Urban Villager and Tough Customer. She writes extensively for major Indian newspapers. A TEDx speaker based in Hyderabad, she combines rigorous scholarship with an engaging, lively voice.